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Seeking Justice in International Law: the Significance and Implications of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesWednesday 30 March in Lögberg, room 101

Lecturer
Dr. Mauro Barelli, senior lecturer at the City Law School, City University London

Today human rights represent a primary concern of the international legal system. The international community’s commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights, however, does not always produce the results hoped for by the advocates of a more justice-oriented system of international law. Indeed international law is often criticised for, inter alia, its enduring imperial character, incapacity to minimize inequalities and failure to take human suffering seriously. Against this background, the question that this lecture will aim to answer is whether the adoption of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples points to the existence, or emergence, of an international law that promises to provide valid responses to the demands for justice of disempowered and vulnerable groups such as, for example, homeland minorities, the Roma, and peasants. By assessing whether international law has responded fairly and adequately to the human rights claims of indigenous peoples, and exploring the relationship between this response and some distinctive features of the indigenous peoples’ struggle for justice, this lecture will seek to draw some important conclusions as to the reasons behind international law’s positive recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights, shedding some light on the potential impact that this particular legal development might have on the human struggles of other ethno-cultural groups.

Dr Mauro Barelli is a Senior Lecturer at The City Law School, City University London, where he teaches public international law and international human rights at undergraduate level, and minority and indigenous peoples’ rights at postgraduate level. He also taught at Cardiff University and has been a visiting fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (Cambridge University). In 2005/2006 he was Counsel for the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the case concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide before the International Court of Justice. Dr Mauro Barelli has written extensively on the question of indigenous peoples’ rights in international law, and has also collaborated with international NGOs working on minority and indigenous rights.

Chair: Brynhildur G. Flóvenz, associate professor at the Law Faculty of the University of Iceland